Horus Heresy - Zone Mortalis: Part One

Hello Everyone Tylar here - Welcome BACK! Wow what a time in human history to be alive. A global pandemic, man returning to space in a commercially built rocket and the UnityB4Heresy Team bringing you some saucy lock-down terrain for when this all ends and we can get back to serious gaming. 😀

Now obviously it isn't the same for everyone but here in the UK we've been restricted in movement during the lockdown period and whilst its been really tough for a lot of people it's been amazing to see everyone within the community turn to hobby to keep themselves busy.

Our own King Fluff has been running zoom hobby hang-outs and has been getting through a back-log of projects that we hope to bring you in the future.

JohnGG has been beavering away in the background whilst working from home. The Sons of the Khan and their allies will ride again!  Once he's stopped saving the world from his home office he'll be riding across the stars on the back of a jet-bike.

Myself I've been waiting to put a project together for some time. After the Zone Mortalis tiles were cancelled for production by Forge-World I was really disappointed I was unable to secure more of the plain tiles to finish my terrain projects.  I had planned to add 16 of the original resins to complete an airfield board map but only having bought the first four this wasn't going to be viable.

Then along came the plastic Necromunda Tiles.......And oh my are they awesome.  What it now means is that you can create you own Zone Mortalis maps and combinations with the modular plastics.  Although originally designed for Necromunda these tiles are perfect for gaming in the Age of Darkness and an excellent replacement to the resins.

SO today we bring you part one of my Horus Heresy Zone Mortalis project.  I decided early on that I wanted a playing area that would be enough to play ZM but wasn't too big to be an overwhelming gaming area.  So I opted for enough tiles to cover a 4 x 4 area.

With the weather being exceptional during these difficult times I took the opportunity to do some hobby in the garden.  Here are the tiles laid out getting their first coat of primer.  For those of you in the UK I used the trusty Halfords Grey Primer.

Having completed the primer coats I then turned to using the GW paint 'rattle can' Leadbelcher.  For this I concentrated on the vent areas and the panel lines that connected them.  This would give me a solid base coat with a metallic base so that when I begin to fill in the main panels with the air-brush, I would have an easier time with the tedious job of going back in to the metal areas.

Now that would be pretty boring wouldn't it?  For those that may remember Forgeworld created an awesome Battle at Phall board for one of the Horus Heresy Weekenders and I wanted to emulate elements of it for my own board.  Because a parked Thunderhawk looks cool to fight around.  Always apply the rule of cool and fluff where possible!

For those that haven't seen it here's a reminder.

(Photo Courtesy of Recalcitrant Daze)

So the easiest way I felt I could achieve this was using the age old method of masking the areas off and using 'rattle cans' to achieve the look I was after.  Actually it wasn't really that hard if I'm honest just a little time consuming.  To ensure I didn't have any 'bleed' from the paint I used smaller Tamiya masking tape to cover the edges of the paint areas and then normal masking tape with some cut A4 paper, taping the tiles down so they didn't move.

Next having sprayed the taped off areas with GW Chaos Black I then used further masking tape to create the hazard stripe effects I wanted to achieve.  I taped off the tiles using different sizes and also ensured that the orientation of the stripes would give a different visual once completed.  One tile I left blank to colour it yellow.  I'll likely add additional decals to this at a later date.

Having completed the yellow with a few coats I bravely and excitedly removed the first layer of masking.  I have to say I was really impressed with how it turned out and seeing how well it came out I was looking forwards to removing the final masking to see the finished results.

And WOW! There you have it, what an awesome look if I do say so myself.  Now the tiles at this stage aren't completed and sill require more work.  The general floor panels need to be airbrushed and then weathered, weathering large areas is something I've not done before so I'm again excited and apprehensive at this stage.  Finally some of the smaller details on the panelling that needs to be picked out will be completed once all of the first stage paint is laid down.

I'm really pleased with the result and it's a great first step to seeing this long time project finally get off the ground.  With GW finally opening up their online sales again in the UK I've managed to secure some of the walls and doors to allow me to really move the project forwards.  I'll also be previewing some really exciting new things for the blog in my next post leading up to part two of this project series that will allow me to bring some really cool extra details and features to the board.

We hope you like it and will follow the project as I move onto the next part with more floor tiles and masking shenanigans as I attempt to emulate even more cool features.  Here's a sneak at what I'll be using as a reference for the next part fo the project.

Check back with the blog for some cool new developments and we'll be brining you the second part of the Horus Heresy Zone Mortalis project soon.  If you have any questions about the project or want to know more feel free to comment, like and share this project and follow the blog to stay up to date with all the new content coming your way.

Exciting Times!

- Only in Death Does Duty End

The UnityB4Heresy Team